A 6-week-old kitten has been miraculously recovered alive from a woman's bumper after allegedly traveling 100 miles/161km undetected across upstate New York.

After what Stacey Pulsifer estimates having been 22 hours of straight driving, it wasn't until she pulled through a McDonald's drive-thru near Plattsburgh, New York for coffee that she first heard what sounded like meowing.

Rescued: Stacey Pulsifer holds up Pumpkin a 6-week-old kitten she discovered trapped in her car's bumper after a 100 mile drive across upstate New York

'I couldn't figure out where the cries were coming from,' she told the Press Republican.

Purely baffled, she returned to her apartment nearby, and hearing the meowing continue, called up two friends to help investigate.

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After climbing in and out of her car searching from top to bottom, the scared black kitten was discovered wedged behind her Jeep’s bumper.

Route: Ms Pulsifer estimated having driven 22 hours across upstate New York - from Plattsburgh to Elizabethtown and back - before discovering the kitten

'We called the police, we called the emergency vet. Who do you call when something like this happens?' she asked.

'We called the police, we called the emergency vet. Who do you call when something like this happens?'

- Stacey Pulsifer

After being cut out from her dangerous nook, and making several midnight phone calls to her vet, Ms Pulsifer reports the cat newly named Pumpkin as being fine - up until her front paw, at least, which was found broken in several places.

'She will need to have her front leg amputated when she gets a little older,' Ms Pulsifer told the paper. 'But it really doesn't slow her down any.'

Watching the tiny black cat scamper around her apartment, playing with toys people have since dropped off for her, Ms Pulsifer said that the injury that keeps her in a pink sling, hasn't dampened her spirits.